During his keynote speech at this week’s TechEd 2008 event in Orlando, out-going Microsoft Corp. chairman Bill Gates has outlined that the next public beta of Internet Explorer 8 will not be ready for doling out to testers and developers until the back end of this summer.
Microsoft claims Beta 2 of its Internet Explorer 8 browser will arrive in August. Image: Microsoft.
Those attendees hoping that the American software giant would use the Florida event platform to coincide with the unveiling of the latest test version of the company’s hugely popular Web browser were left disappointed by Microsoft, which said a substantial backlog of valuable customer feedback was slowing progress.
Beyond the keynote announcement, Microsoft has also officially verified the IE8 Beta 2 re-shuffle via its Internet Explorer developers’ blog, which saw Group Program Manager Tony Chor relay the following:
“In addition to the features for developers we showed in IE8 Beta 1, we’ve been working on great new features for consumers and IT professionals (as well as doing even more cool stuff for developers)… “I’m happy to announce that we’re on track to deliver IE8 Beta 2 this August when you’ll get a chance to see what we’ve been up to in these areas.”
Chor also cited sheer weight of customer feedback from Beta 1 as the central reason for bogging down development on Beta 2, while also perhaps tempting users to unwittingly throw a further spanner into the Redmond-based company’s release schedule by openly imploring current Beta 1 testers to “keep those comments coming please!”
When Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 does finally arrive, it will receive an initial release in English, with 20 other foreign language variations expected to be launched within a further four weeks.
Disappointing IE8 delays aside, one Beta 2 release that Microsoft confirmed will be made available this week is the latest test version of Silverlight 2.0, Microsoft’s Web browser plug-in that provides support for rich Internet applications (RIAs) such as animation, vector graphics and audio-video playback.
There are currently no comments for this article. Be the first to comment! (no registration required)
Advertising
There are currently no comments for this article. Be the first to comment! (no registration required)